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By Barrett Tillman In 1966, novelist Robert Ruark wrote a nonfiction book about hunting in Africa. It was titled Use Enough Gun—good advice for everyone, especially in aerial combat. When the world’s air arms used mixed machine gun and cannon armament for fighters, and mostly rifle-caliber guns on bombers, the United States took another route. [...]

By Barrett Tillman Our readers know Barnaby Wainfan as a knowledgeable writer with insight into unconventional aircraft designs. Among his Flight Journal articles are his contributions on lifting bodies and the Vought V-173 “Flying Flapjack.” Wainfan is a longtime aeronautical engineer with degrees from Cornell and the University of Michigan. He has worked with Northrop [...]

1921 – Pierre Clostermann, French World War II pilot, was born. Colstermann was a French flying ace, author, engineer and politician. 1937 – First flight of the Mitsubishi Ki-30 (Allied reporting name “Ann”). It is the first Japanese aircraft to be powered by a modern two-row radial engine. 1947 – U. S. Army Air Forces Captain Robert E. Thacker (pilot) and Lieutenant [...]

Greatest Generation Aircraft, a Fort Worth, Texas-based foundation that operates a pair of World War II aircraft, will host a charity auction this Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon, at the Vintage Flying Museum hangar at 505 NW 38th Street. Among the many unique items set to roll across the auction block is a Cyclone radial [...]

Now, he’s flying with the angels. Tom Griffin, one of just five surviving Doolittle Raiders, died Tuesday night in his sleep at the Fort Thomas VA hospital in Kentucky. He navigated one of 16 North American B-25 Mitchell bombers from an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Pacific during the early dark days of [...]

The two Boeing F/A-18 Hornet fighters approach the 27-meter-long hoses trailing from the wings of the Airbus airliner like hungry calves seeking out a mother’s teat. High above Lakes Entrance in East Gippsland, Australia, yesterday afternoon, the latest inclusion to the Royal Australian Air Force inventory, the KC-30A multirole tanker transport, demonstrated how Australia was now [...]

Federal Aviation Administration chief Michael Huerta said Wednesday that Boeing won’t get its 787 Dreamliners back in passenger service without extensive testing and recertification of its proposed fix for the jet’s lithium ion battery problem. In testimony before a Congressional subcommittee, Huerta said he expects a report back from his technical staff next week that [...]

There were some high clouds in the sky over Bernieres-sur-Mer, a tiny town in the Normandy region of France, on June 29, 1944. It was typical weather along the English Channel, yet probably more pleasant than the previous week or so, when a storm lasting four days battered the area. Still, an accurate forecast for [...]